


The Next Time

by Crowgirl



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, Nail Polish, Not Beta Read, Post-Skyfall, Pre-Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 10:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18341759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: ‘Q.’‘Mm.’‘What is that on your hands?’





	1. Chapter 1

Bond waits until M is distracted with the failings of some other poor soul hauled from their bed at this ridiculous hour. He and Q have been more or less forgotten at the back of the operations center and Q looks to be just about falling asleep on his feet. ‘Q.’

‘Mm.’

‘What _is_ that on your hands?’

Q looks at Bond, then stretches his hands out in front of him and blinks at them. ‘...nothing?’

Bond reaches out and taps Q’s thumbnail, noting at the same time that Q is cold, probably a side-effect of being hauled out of bed at just past midnight in January. ‘They don’t usually look like that.’

‘Oh...’ Q flexes his fingers and yawns, digging his hands back under his arms. ‘I’m spending the holidays with my sister. My niece got nail varnish for Christmas.’

‘And thought pink sparkles would suit you?’

Q shrugs, then glances sideways at Bond. ‘You’re saying they don’t?’

Bond doesn’t get a chance to say anything as M chooses that minute to turn her frustration back on them.

* * *

The next time it isn’t sparkles: it’s a purple so light as to be nearly clear. ‘Staying with your sister again?’

‘What?’ Q stops fiddling with the band around Bond’s wrist and frowns at him.

‘The manicure.’

‘Oh! Yes, actually.’ Q holds his hand out again and shrugs. ‘I sleep quite deeply apparently.’

Bond catches Q’s hand as he reaches for the strap again and runs his thumb over the smooth varnish, holding Q’s fingers on his palm. ‘Better than the sparkles, I think.’ He presses the pad of his thumb over Q’s index nail and looks up at him.

Q’s eyes are wide, but he isn’t pulling back; instead, he’s giving James the look he usually saves for software that isn’t behaving properly, narrow-eyed and calculating. ‘I’ll be sure to keep your preferences in mind.’

* * *

The next time isn’t until eight months later, after Silva, after M, after James had taken more damage than he had thought himself capable of and found himself still on his feet. Swaying, perhaps, but upright. 

This time, the color’s bright magenta; it makes Q’s skin look even more ivory by contrast and James can’t make himself take his eyes off Q’s fingers. 

‘Feeling all right, Bond?’ Q asks, stretching past him to get the next section of webbing to wrap around James’s bicep. 

James knows it’s a serious question. Q was one of the few he lets ask and one of the even fewer he occasionally answers. ‘I was just considering your latest manicure.’

Q’s eyes flick up to his for a minute, then he’s back in business, slipping the digital lockpick into place. ‘My niece.’

‘Changed her taste in colors a bit, hasn’t she?’

Q shrugs. ‘I don’t really keep track.’ 

* * *

The next time is a dull matte orange; it looks almost as if, were James to touch it, it would be soft, like suede. James has plenty of time to consider it as Q walks him through the steps of placing and activating a particularly tricky bug. The orange shows up nicely against the sharp black of Q’s keyboard but James thinks he preferred the magenta for how it made Q’s skin glow. 

* * *

The next time is an uneven attempt at a French manicure.

‘Your niece branching out?’ Bond leans over Q’s worktable to see his fingers. He’s given up on having an actual reason to come down here; Q doesn’t seem bothered by his presence and it isn’t like he’s really wanted anywhere else in the building. Agents off-duty tend to drift in and out as they will and Bond takes full advantage of that.

‘Hmm? Oh…’ Q splays his fingers out and sighs. ‘Yes, well.’

‘Doesn’t she have anyone else to practice on?’

Q gives him a sharp look. ‘She’s on her own most of the time.’

‘Really?’

‘Her mum’s a nurse.’

‘What about dad?’ Bond nods at Q’s hands. ‘Since she clearly doesn’t care too much about gender in her models.’

‘Dad did a bunk two months before she was born.’ There’s ice in Q’s voice now as he turns his attention back to the gizmo he’s fiddling with; Bond has no idea what it is. ‘My sister works all hours trying to keep them in a decent flat. I go over when I can, let her rest a bit.’ He shoots Bond another sharp look. ‘So if Lanie wants to paint my nails, she gets to paint my nails.’

Bond says nothing for a few minutes, trying to judge if he’s just been disinvited from this conversation on a permanent basis or whether Q’s simply trying to inform him of something he hadn’t known. He doesn’t have anything in his experience to give him guidance. That’s not the kind of family he had known.

After several moments of quiet, Q goes to reach for something on the far side of the table and sighs, holding his hand up again. ‘But you’re right. She’s a bit shaky. She’s only eleven.’

‘Tell her to use something as a guide next time,’ Bond says before he thinks and lifts Q’s fingers across the back of his own hand. Contrary to his pallor, Q is warm, his index and pointer finger lightly calloused, and Bond can feel strength in the twitch of the reflex which nearly has Q snatching his hand back -- but doesn’t. Without looking up, Bond traces a line with his own thumbnail along the curve of Q’s pinky nail, currently hidden under blobby pink polish. ‘To train her eye.’

Q is looking at him when Bond glances up and there’s no sharpness this time. ‘I will.’

* * *

The next time is another French manicure with bright blue tips, the edges crisp on every nail. Q tells him his niece -- Lanie, Bond remembers, which must be short for something -- used a rubber band as a guide and thanks him for the advice. Bond feels foolishly pleased about that. 

* * *

After that, Bond loses track a bit: there’s a reverse French (which he tells Q sounds like some obscure sex position: “I didn’t know any sexual positions were obscure to you, Bond.” “James. I thought we settled that.” “Hm.”), then something involving a pattern of tiny glued-on beads which doesn’t appeal to Bond at all (not entirely because he’s now admitting to himself that he daydreams about sucking on Q’s fingertips -- the look really doesn’t suit) and Q complains about because the beads have a habit of dropping off.

Then there’s a dark, shining green Bond can’t take his eyes off. He wants to run his fingertips over the smoothness, feel the contrast between varnish and skin, map it out with his lips, his tongue -- and while he’s _fairly_ sure Q knows this and is just playing along until Bond decides to do something about it -- he’s not _entirely_ sure and that keeps him just this side of doing that final something. If he balls this up -- all too easy --his gut tells him there’ll be no going back from it. 

* * *

‘Did you _have_ to do that?’ Bond drops to his knees, helps Q struggle the rest of the way to sitting, then steadies him in place as he tries to catch his breath.

‘My -- they’re _my_ \--’ Q has to stop to gulp in air and the effort almost makes him double over.

‘Running into stupidly dangerous places is _my_ bloody job, you idiot,’ Bond says, looking around for anyone who might have a spare moment to call 999 or even a plaster in their pocket but the corridor is half-full of smoke, there are sparks coming out of the server room, and while he can hear shouts and running, it’s some distance off. 

Q rolls his watering eyes and scrubs at his cheeks with the heels of his hands. ‘Like…’ The rest of the words are lost in coughing and Bond winces to see how much it evidently hurts -- there’s a broken rib there for a certainty, possibly more than one, and Q should count himself fucking lucky if getting a _door_ thrown against him by the blast of the explosion has _only_ broken a few ribs. 

Q drags in a wheezing breath. ‘Like you’d know what to do,’ he rasps out.

‘With a bomb? I have seen a few. Disarmed them, even. Which is the step you seem to have missed.’ 

‘Oh, fuck you, Bond.’

‘Not now, dear,’ Bond says without thinking, fumbling in his pocket for his mobile. ‘You couldn’t keep up.’ He freezes with his phone in one hand and the other on Q’s shoulder. For a minute, all he can hear is his pulse in his ears, then the real world kicks in again and he can hear the server room toasting merrily away beside them and Q -- Q is _laughing._

It’s a throaty, rough, breathless sound and he has both arms clasped over his abdomen as if it hurts but he’s _laughing_. 

Bond clears his throat and starts poking numbers into his phone, trying to ignore the hoarse chuckling. Q shakes his head and reaches out to put his hand over Bond’s. Dark blue, Bond notes, almost automatically; once almost mirror-like in finish, now quite badly chipped and even-- ‘Christ, your hand!’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ Q chides, but Bond is already cradling Q’s burnt fingers. 

‘You _are_ the bloody subject,’ Bond replies and takes a deep breath, ready to start yelling for whoever it is he can hear coming up the nearest staircase.

‘Then why the hell have you waited this long?’ 

Bond is caught in mid-inhale, staring at Q and doesn’t have time to answer before the medics burst out of the stairwell and chivvy Bond away.

* * *

He doesn’t visit Q in hospital. It’s cowardly of him, he knows, and were it any other place than the wing in the MI6 tunnels where he spent what now seems like several years of his life after Scotland, he might try. As it is, he doesn’t dare. 

* * *

‘Well.’ Q puts down the soldering iron when Bond walks through the door. ‘This is an honor.’

Bond ignores the vinegar in Q’s tone. ‘How are you?’

Q shrugs. ‘Ribs are healing nicely.’ He holds up his hands; there’s thin bandaging coming from under both cuffs to mid-palm -- his left pinky and ring finger are swathed to the knuckles, but each finger is tipped with a different bright color. ‘Undamaged. So I’m not as much of a fool as you think after all.’ 

Bond doesn’t bother answering; it’s just a feint to bring them back into their old pattern and he’s not interested in that. Instead, he crosses the room to Q’s tall stool, takes Q’s left hand, and kisses each of Q’s fingertips, slowly, thoroughly, and carefully.

Q doesn’t try to pull away, just watches him, breathing slightly fast. When Bond finishes and looks up, Q says, ‘Now who’s the fool? I might’ve been playing with poison.’

‘Never in here.’ Bond holds out his free hand and Q gives him his without hesitation. ‘I like the new look.’

‘Did it specially for you.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, [HyperMint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperMint/pseuds/HM) asked [the question, y'see...](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/219189827)

For once, Bond is honestly not intending to snoop. Really, all he wants to do is make use of the facilities, wash his hands and face, and get back into the bedroom to make sure the beautiful man whose side he left only reluctantly was still there.

But Q’s medicine cabinet is an odd, over-designed thing with one side made of solid mirror and the other side open shelves behind a glass door and the bright bottles catch his eye almost immediately.

He shakes his hands, looks around for a towel, and gives his face a perfunctory scrub, and flicks the door open. 

The bottles are all lined up neatly, in the order that he had seen them, with a few gaps: pink sparkles, yes; clear purple, no; magenta, yes; furry orange, yes; plain pink and blue, no; silvered blue, yes. 

He picks up the last bottle and bounces it thoughtfully in his palm, then snaps off the light and goes back into the bedroom. 

* * *

‘You remade the bed,’ Bond remarks, throwing back the covers on his side and arranging himself against the pillows. 

Q shrugs; he’s curled on his side, the bedclothes drawn up to his waist, a pillow cuddled against his chest. ‘I hate rumpled sheets.’ 

Bond shoots him an amused look. ‘You did invite me over.’ 

Q grins, but the expression doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Bond can’t tell exactly what’s changed in the five minutes or less he spent in the bathroom but he’s not enjoying it as much as he had the several hours before. Pulling the bed together seems to have led to Q pulling himself together in such a way as to leave Bond very slightly -- excluded and he doesn’t like the feeling. 

‘So is there a Lanie?’

‘What? Yes! Of course there is!’ Q shoves himself up, anger sparking in his dark eyes.

‘Well, you see, I just wondered--’ Bond flourishes the small bottle in Q’s face.

‘Ah -- oh --’ Q visibly deflates, sinking back onto the pillow which he clutches against his breastbone as if Bond were threatening to rip it from him. 

‘Yes. Well.’ He clears his throat, drumming his fingers soundlessly on the mattress. ‘She gave me the colors she didn’t like.’ 

Bond nods, unscrewing the bottle top and inspecting the tiny dripping brush with more attention than it really deserves. There’s something here, some clue to Q’s sudden rigor, if he can just poke it into the light. He taps the excess varnish off on the neck of the bottle and makes a pass with the brush over his own thumbnail, leaving a dark blue, gleaming trail. 

Q clears his throat again. ‘You always asked me about them. My nails. Whenever she’d painted them.’

‘Yes. I did,’ Bond agrees, and finishes painting his thumbnail. He slips the brush back into the bottle and holds out his hand, tilting it one way and then the other to catch the color in the light.

Q groans and buries his face in the pillow. ‘James… are you really…’

‘Well, I _am_ curious.’ 

‘Of course you are,’ Q mutters into the pillow, then lifts his head. ‘After -- well, after what happened, you were --’

James listens silently, patiently coloring one nail after another; he’s surprised by how soothing it is: the smoothness of the varnish, the faint chemical sting in the back of his nose, the satisfaction of seeing the sleek color spread. 

‘--you were not like -- yourself. It was -- hard. To see you like that.’ Q is speaking very carefully now, looking not at James but at his own hand on the sheet. ‘And you kept coming into my office and--’ He drums his fingers again and then, as if Bond were arguing with him, speaks sharply and quickly: ‘You couldn’t see yourself -- you looked like fucking death and you kept coming in and just -- _sitting_ there but every time Lanie had painted my nails, you’d ask -- every damned time so I -- I--’ He sticks.

‘--kept doing it,’ James finishes at the same time as he puts the last stroke on his second pinky nail and re-caps the bottle.

Q sighs and resettles himself against the pillow, again pulling it close. ‘Yes.’ 

James puts the bottle on the nightstand and leans back, enjoying both the stretch in his hips and the quick dart of Q’s eyes down his body. ‘There’s no harm in that.’

‘No. I --’ Q is silent for a minute and then makes an almost audible decision, pushing himself up to sitting and this time it’s James’s turn to let his eyes linger. ‘Look, if -- this has been nice. Obviously. But. I understand. I do.’

‘You do,’ James repeats, fanning out his fingers and blowing unnecessarily on the already dry polish. 

‘Yes,’ Q says and it’s the tone he uses to be firm about something he’s more or less making up on the fly and James narrows his eyes at him. Q rolls his eyes in reponse. ‘Look, you may not be entirely aware of this? But you flirt with everything within a fifty-metre radius--’

‘Do I?’ James turns on his side, pushing himself into Q’s space. 

‘You do.’ Q is watching him, a tiny line between his eyebrows, but his hands are relaxing on the pillow. James takes the opportunity to plant his own hand on the cotton slip between Q’s. ‘And this has been lovely but--’

‘Could be lovelier?’ James gives the pillow a gentle tug. Q lets go of it slowly and James drops it over his shoulder. He edges closer and strokes his fingers down Q’s chest, along the valley of muscle over his belly, stopping just short of the coarse hair below his navel. He fans out his fingers, admiring the gleam of dark blue against the pallor of Q’s skin. ‘I agree.’ 

There’s a moment where Q watches James’s face and James lets him, watching the pieces slip together, the lines on Q’s forehead smooth away.

Then Q eases himself onto his back, stretching with theatrical slowness until his head is pillowed on one crooked arm. ‘I’m supposed to be careful with my hands.’ He reaches up with his free hand and slides his fingers through James’s hair. 

‘I’m sure we can arrange that.’ 


End file.
